Monday, July 02, 2012

Law will make teaching Jewish 'Nakba' compulsory (updated)

Update: news has just reached Point of No Return that the bill was initially rejected by the ministerial committee. Nissim Zeev has two weeks to re-submit his bill with specific amendments.A group of members of the Israeli Knesset, supported by organisations representing Jews from Arab countries, have been quietly working away to prepare legislation that will ensure that the history and displacement of Jews from Arab countries will not be forgotten.

On Sunday 30 June, MK Nissim Zeev, together with some 20 other MKs, presented a bill before the Committee of ministers for legislative affairs, headed by Justice minister Yaakov Neeman. If the bill is passed, the preservation of the history and memory of the tragedy of Jews from Arab countries would become the law of the land.

This law is of supreme importance because it makes teaching the history and tragedy of the Jews from Arab countries compulsory in schools.

The bill was submitted to the Knesset on 25th January 2010 but put on the backburner while priority was given to a law insisting that compensation for Jews from Arab countries is included in any Middle east peace settlement.

Here is the text of the new bill:

Bill perpetuating the History and Heritage of Jews from Muslim lands - 2010(With thanks for her translation from Hebrew: Levana)

A. Goals - Objectives of the Act :(1) to perpetuate the history and heritage of the Jewish communities that existed in Islamic countries in the twentieth century and earlier, including their life as a religious minority, their status and the circumstances of their leaving these countries as refugees;

(2) to instil awareness among the public, including through the education system, and among countries in the world, of human rights violations of Jewish refugees from Islamic countries, due to their status as refugees.

B. Definitions - in this Act:"Islamic countries" - Countries of North Africa, the Persian Gulf and the Middle East;"Refugee" - person who had to leave the country where he or she lived as a citizen or resident out of fear of being persecuted because of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion and unable or unwilling to rely on the protection of that country due to such a fear;"Jewish refugees from Islamic countries" - Jews who were citizens or residents in Muslim countries and who left their countries as refugees in the spirit of the UN Refugee Convention 1951 (1951 UN Refugee Convention) through the establishment of Israel, and of Jews who left the Islamic Republic of Iran - even after that;"Minister" - Minister of Education and Foreign Minister.

C. Perpetuating the history and heritage of Jews of Islamic Countries.(a) The State of Israel will commemorate the history and heritage of the Jews of Islamic countries in the twentieth century and earlier, through the collection and documentation of legal and historical information, including the following:(1) the circumstances of their lives as a religious minority;(2) the status and circumstances of their leaving their home countries as refugees;(3) The rules set forth in Islamic countries, imposing restrictions, expropriation, confiscation, and so forth for property belonging to Jews or the Jewish community;(4) acts of persecution against Jews.

(b) the perpetuation of Jewish history and heritage of Islamic countries will, among other things, be implemented as part of compulsory education, and in educational institutions, military and legal cultural institutions; information will be accessible to the public through the Internet.

(c) The State of Israel and advocacy system will operate as part of its foreign activities, to raise awareness of Jewish refugees from Islamic countries at the international level.

(d) In its activities of sub-paragraphs (a) and (b), the country will work in collaboration with various organizations representing the interests of the Jews from Arab Countries in Israel and abroad.

D. Memorial under this Act.Each institution to be set up, inter alia, for the purpose of perpetuating the history and heritage of Jews from Islamic countries, will commemorate topics as specified in the objectives of this law.

3 comments:

I would not be worried by the rejection in view of the general direction of this government since 2009. I saw things in the draft bill that I thought ought to be changed. But in view of the requirement that peace talks with Arabs also deal with compensation for Jews from Arab lands, I think that the govt wants such a law. Of course, encouragement ought to be given to MK Nissim Zeev and to others involved, as well as encouraging Minister of Education Gideon Saar and the PM to support an amended bill.

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Introduction

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)